LEGO

While Robert was gone, Janey invited me over to help her put together a secretariat desk and wardrobe from IKEA. When we couldn’t figure out how to get the thingy out of the power drill, Dan stepped in, and Janey made supper while Dan and I finished assembling the furniture because we all agreed that IKEA and spouses don’t mix any more than spouses and wall-papering. The bit about the power drill (shouldn’t it be called a power screw driver?) tells you how much I help Robert assemble things in the shop (not). But I must say that if you can handle twisting a screwdriver for six hours or steadying a power tool for three, you can put IKEA furniture together. They give you LEGO instructions for each step (I’m advising Philip that if he doesn’t get a job with LEGO he could work for IKEA, the big people LEGO store), picture books and all. I bet the inventor of IKEA put together lots of LEGO kits when he was four.

IKEA and LEGO are very ironic products, because they are pieces mass-produced on assembly lines (probably by the robots that Dan creates in his shop, adding to the irony), but they are designed so that you can be innovative and feel a sense of accomplishment and ownership when you assemble the mass-produced, identical pieces, yourself, into something impossible and original (to you). You infuse uniqueness into sameness. Craftsmanship into factory work. That is a God thing.

I’m glad for assembly lines. They make IKEA and LEGO and Toyotas possible. They also make it possible for me to survive cancer. Today I went to the hospital twice. Muga Scan. Check. Radiation. Check. Doctor visit. Check. Lab test. Check. When Henry Ford rolled his Model T’s off his assembly line in 1908 for just under $900, he made it possible for hospitals to invent integrated cancer clinics that slide you in and out of CT machines, and Linear Accelerators, and Chemo chairs in minutes, distributing the cost among thousands of customers. I am aware that it is the efficiency of the system that makes it possible for Canada’s health system to take care of one more stranger walking in the door. Bravo. I asked myself inside the Muga Machine whether the technologist knew that I get IV infusions that can wreck my heart muscles, and that is why I am lying on her table again. Does she know the part she plays in keeping me healthy along with the 20 other patients that fill her day?

We see the effects of Henry Ford’s gift to the world everywhere: in our grocery stores, where we can buy gala apples or hass avocados in any store across the continent, or in our schools, where every student is guaranteed the same curriculum program, or in our churches, where people move in and out of warehouse-looking buildings, receiving the latest, greatest teachings and worshippings. If we didn’t have these things, we’d miss out. We’d die of cancer or ignorance.

As we know, God produces on a mass scale, turning out kitties and rose buds and little human babies that look more or less the same each time, but somehow no two things He makes are ever the same. And he uses organic assembly lines, our bodies, to build new cells and keep our engines running, all the members staying on task toward a common goal of survival or maybe just points in a video game. But God makes something new every time He puts the pieces together. How does he do that! Because when things start feeling monotonous, the same ‘ol, same ‘ol, we need to remember that although faithfulness is required, monotony is not His style.

Jan Vormann cleaning up the city

What’s he making out of us, his IKEA pieces, his LEGO blocks? Cool thing is that we get to decide that for ourselves, picking each other up off the ground and fitting one another together (don’t you just love that squeeky, creeky sound of LEGO blocks fitting just right?) into a wonderful new invention that we will own and love because it’s us, us including Jesus. We are assembling something made from millions of pieces, made by millions of members, a one-off impossible creature. Ahhh. So if it gets tough on the line, think of that.